


burning for you

by vatonages



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Making Out, No Plot/Plotless, Unrequited Love, they don't end up together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 02:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18929500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vatonages/pseuds/vatonages
Summary: There’s Donghyuk, and there’s Mark, and there’s the tiny space in between, just big enough for Jeno to fit, just for a moment. He’ll erase it after, let them have all that which they are destined for, but he still shudders when Mark’s hands, calloused from years of playing guitar, hold his waist and his thumbs slip up under his shirt to rub at the hot skin of his lower back.





	burning for you

Jeno doesn’t think he and Mark were meant for each other, but he wishes they were.

 

When he thinks of all the greatest love stories he’s heard over time, drinking poison for each other, taking a flight across the world for someone, huge gestures of love and sacrifice, the kind of love that is destined from the start, it doesn’t fit them. He can see himself drinking the poison, laying down and dying for love, for Mark, buying plane tickets at 2 in the morning to Canada, but he just can’t see Mark doing the same.

 

Jeno could keep trying to fit the square block into the circular slot and pretend that if he just maneuvered it the right way, it would fit. That if he sanded the edges off and made it round, it could conceivably slide in, knowing the whole time that he had tampered with it, interfered somehow, that it wouldn’t fit in the way it was supposed to.

 

Or, he could acknowledge that there was a place for the square block, a place where it would fit perfectly, it just wasn’t there.

 

For Donghyuk, maybe, Mark would lay it all down, rush over. It’s always been Mark and Donghyuk, Donghyuk and Mark over and over since the beginning of time, the only person who can cause Mark such hot, simmering anger and then soothe the fire, make him laugh so hard that he forgets he was ever mad. For Donghyuk maybe, it’d be more like dumping a bucket of water over Mark’s head from 20 feet up, a scene out of a comedy. Mark would gasp in shock, look up, and they’d make eye contact as the laugh track played, smiling at each other.

 

That, Jeno thinks, is the love that was written in the stars for Mark. And as much as Jeno wishes it were him that could inspire such intensity in Mark, he can’t bring himself to be actively jealous of Donghyuk, not when he loves Donghyuk so much and wishes all the happiness in the world for him, too.

 

But they haven’t realized it yet, their destiny. They haven’t read the story together, so Jeno is in Mark’s room per Mark’s request via text, crawling over to sit in his lap. For this moment, for this finite amount of time, Jeno can scrawl a place for himself in their great big love story, scribble his name in the margins.

 

There’s Donghyuk, and there’s Mark, and there’s the tiny space in between, just big enough for Jeno to fit, just for a moment. He’ll erase it after, let them have all that which they are destined for, but he still shudders when Mark’s hands, calloused from years of playing guitar, hold his waist and his thumbs slip up under his shirt to rub at the hot skin of his lower back.

 

Renjun was against it at first, the only person Jeno had told where he was going, but then he sighed.

 

“You know what?” he said. “Do it. Maybe this is what it’ll take for you to finally get over him. It’ll be over, you know? The mystery of it all. You’ll finally know what it’s like, so you can stop imagining it.” Renjun is tired of talking about Mark, tired of hearing about him.

 

Jeno has loved Mark since the moment he met him, and back then he was 13. He’s 19 now, and 6 years is a long time to know someone, like them so much. Renjun isn’t like the rest of them, met Mark later on when he’d already formed his personality, had his own people he looked up to, hadn’t met him at that very important and malleable stage.

 

It hadn’t helped that the first day Renjun had met Mark, Mark had called him hyung, said that Renjun looked old, and then opened a just-purchased vending machine soda without waiting long enough, and got it all over both of them when it sprayed out of the bottle.

 

So yeah, there was no hero worship there.

 

“He’s like, goofy, and he got Coke all over my shirt.” Renjun said. “I don’t get the whole,” he stopped to gesture aimlessly with his hand. “...thing. Doesn’t seem very crush worthy to me.” Jeno laughed fondly.

 

“He _is_ goofy, and it’s endearing.” Even then, his eyes were warm with fondness. He knew, for it was something he had experienced many times before while talking about Mark.

 

As much as Jeno wanted Mark to rough him up a bit, use him to some extent, Mark was kind. As it were, kissing was insufficient, and Jeno couldn’t help but want more than an hour of Mark’s time, more than just a makeout session, but he wouldn’t complain, already knew he was taking up space that didn’t belong to him, some sort of fluke of the universe, a glitch in the system.

 

Jeno wondered if it was weird for Mark to kiss him. Mark had seen him throw up cotton candy at the amusement park when he was 14 and fall off a bike and scrape his knee and get scratched by Seol while trying to give her a bath, eyes puffy from allergies and a little wet with tears. Seol was a sweet girl, but man, were her claws sharp.

 

But it couldn’t have been too weird for him, because it was Mark who asked Jeno to come over under the pretense of studying even though they didn’t take any of the same classes, Mark who gestured for Jeno to come over and sit in his lap, Mark who was licking into Jeno’s mouth with his warm tongue, kittenlike and maddening, a smooth transition to biting and sucking on his lower lip.

 

Jeno made sounds he was embarrassed by, but he wanted to truly feel everything in the moment, get out of his head. He’d regret it later on, if he blinked and it was over, if he had missed his chance by thinking too much. Without realizing it, Jeno moved so close that their chests were flush together, hadn’t realized when he’d closed the gap between them. He had wanted him subconsciously, a common theme in Jeno’s life.

 

“You probably don’t want to risk your parents seeing any marks, huh?” Mark asked, voice breathy when they pulled away from each other. Jeno hadn’t said that, but Mark was overly cautious, careful with Jeno in a way that Jeno really wanted him not to be.

 

“I don’t care,” Jeno said, voice sounding strange to his own ears, too desperate. “Do whatever you want,” he said, and couldn’t find it in himself to regret it. There was nothing he could say to Mark that could be more honest, more raw, more true to his feelings.

 

Yes, he would drink the poison of love and get on the plane of longing, would fly across the world and brave a Canadian winter to be in Mark’s arms, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t fit inside of them the way he was supposed to.

 

In the meantime, he could let Mark suck a dark, purple bruise into the skin of his neck and revel in the feeling of teeth and lips and body heat. That much, he could let himself take. He could have it for now, like running with the Olympic torch. Of course, it would be Donghyuk at the end, the one he passed it to.

 

And of course, the fire wouldn’t be burning for him.

 

Jeno moans when Mark sucks on his neck, and the sound seems to make Mark more insistent. There’s an out of place diligence in the way Mark’s mouth works, like he feels a kind of responsibility for Jeno’s satisfaction, some weird hyung complex at play, something beyond Jeno’s understanding.

 

Mark pulls back, and Jeno feels the cool air hit the places where the wetness of his mouth sits on the skin. Mark smiles at the sight, presses two fingers against the mark he’s created. Jeno can tell where it is because the skin feels swollen and stings a little bit, a good kind of ache. It’s not a tattoo, but Jeno likes it in the same way he would like one.

 

He and Mark make eye contact that’s held a second too long, and Jeno pounces on him. The kissing is more hungry now, more frantic, Jeno sensing his time is coming to an end. He needs, and he needs to take also.

 

Mark responds enthusiastically, fingers tugging at Jeno’s hair as Jeno’s whole body moves with each kiss until the kisses come so frequent that they are no longer individual kisses, but rather one big long press of mouths to mouths, pulling back for a panicked breath and diving right back in.

 

Mark is an ocean Jeno wants to drown in, a big deep blue body of water that Jeno wants to sink to the bottom of. He’ll wade in waist deep and get lost, let the tide take him so far out he can’t see the sand anymore.

 

Jeno pulls away and sits up, catching his breath, pushing his bangs out of his eyes. They’re too  long now, but he’s always liked them like that. Mark calls it the Trademark Jeno Hairstyle, soft black hair with sideswept bangs that are so long they don’t even stab his eyes anymore.

 

As if the universe has caught up to them, the glitch caught, Mark’s phone rings, and Billionaire by Travie McCoy blasts through the room, startling them both. Jeno smiles sadly to himself as Mark answers, holds the phone up to his ear, groaning.

 

“Yeah?” he answers. It’s Donghyuk, when isn’t it? Jeno can hear the high-pitched musical sound of his voice as it vibrates through the speaker, a voice he’s known forever. a voice that makes Jeno laugh before it even says anything funny, because Jeno is just that used to hearing it make jokes.

 

“Lee Mark,” Donghyuk says, demanding from the get-go. “I need your Calc notes.”

 

“Why?” Mark replies. “You were in class today!”

 

“Yeah, _physically._ But I was very much asleep. Hand them over.” Mark groans.

 

“You know, one of these days I’m gonna say no, and you’re going to fail.”

 

“But that day isn’t today~” Donghyuk singsongs, already knowing that Mark is going to drive them over to his house. Mark looks at Jeno. Jeno, himself, has forgotten he was in the room. He blinks up at Mark, shocked to see him. He feels like in the short time they’ve been on the phone, he’s become a fixture of the room, no longer a person.

 

“Whatever, man,” Mark says. “Hey, I gotta go. I’ll bring them over in a bit,” he says.

 

“Okay,” Donghyuk sings again, and the phone call ends.

 

“Sorry,” Mark says. “You heard him. He’s so _bossy._ I have to go bring him the notes from class. You want a ride home? I’ll drop you off first.” Mark says. Jeno nods.

 

“Yeah, please. That’d be great. I walked here earlier but,” he looks at the window, sees no light coming in through the curtains. “It’s dark now,”

 

He and Mark sit there, neither of them moving. The Calc notes are in Mark’s notebook. Mark doesn’t have to leave. He could just take pictures of them and text them to Donghyuk. He could stay right here, but he’s not _really_ complaining. The thing is, he doesn't actually mind. He does want to see Donghyuk. They’ll probably play video games after, eat snacks, hang out.

 

The notes are just a reason to go over there. They’re an excuse, Jeno knows. He’s read their story already. It starts with Calc notes and ends with a kind of love that people can only dream about, the kind that Jeno had dreamt about having with Mark.

 

Mark moves forward, gathers Jeno in his arms as if Jeno is a crumbled mess, injured and broken, but Jeno feels surprisingly okay. He knew this would happen, after all. Jeno thinks Renjun was right about this, that Jeno can sleep better at night now that they’ve done this, that he’s been Mark’s, even if only for a brief moment, a short period of time in the grand scheme of things. He knows what it feels like now, and more than anything he knows it isn’t for him.

 

Mark kisses him on the mouth, and Jeno kisses back, even opens his mouth so Mark can lick into it one more time. A minute passes dizzily like that, until they pull apart again, this time for good.

 

Jeno climbs out of Mark’s lap and stands up as Mark grabs his notebook off his desk, his keys jingling as he picks them up.

 

The ride home is easy. Mark has gone this way a hundred times, in the dark and in light.

 

He’s bold enough to lean across to the passenger seat and peck Jeno on the cheek before he unlocks the doors. They might have just been kissing with tongue fifteen minutes ago, but this feels more intimate than that, sweet as sugar.

 

“See you tomorrow, Jeno,” Mark says, and Jeno smiles at him in reply right before he shuts the car door and walks away.

 

Mark drives away in his black car and few things are worse than Jeno’s vision in the dark, but he watches and watches until the blur of motion is too far away to see anymore.

  


“Jaemin,” Jeno asks. His head is on Jaemin’s chest, which honestly is more of a symbolic thing than anything else, because it certainly isn’t comfortable. Jaemin’s chest is bony and hard, and the only nice thing is that Jeno can hear his heartbeat speed up, something undeniable and true.

 

“Yeah?” Jaemin responds.

 

“Let’s say you’re in love. Let’s say the person you love is halfway across the world, and you need to see them more than anything. Like, it’s driving you crazy. Do you go see them?”

 

“Of course,” Jaemin answers. It’s too quick. Jeno thought he’d need a minute to think it through, ponder it even.

 

“Really?” Jeno asks, surprised. “It’s a 2AM flight from Incheon International Airport. It’s a long flight.”

 

“Yes! If you love someone that much, you have to go see them. What else is there to do?” When Jaemin says it like that, so simple, so _obvious,_ it makes Jeno’s head spin. He laughs.

  
“Then what if it were me?” Jeno asks, turning to look at Jaemin, make eye contact. “Would you go see me, if I were halfway across the world?” He feels, more than sees, Jaemin swallow hard, and his heartbeat picks up. Jaemin, bypassing all of this, reaches confidently for Jeno’s hand, squeezes gently.

 

“I just said I would, didn’t I? That if you love someone then you have to see them, even if that means buying expensive airport food or sitting next to someone who snores when they sleep.”

 

Jeno’s eyes are wide. He didn’t see that coming. He expected more of a Renjun style answer, an “Are you kidding me? I don’t have that kind of money, and no offense, but you’re not worth sitting through a flight that long.” But Jaemin isn’t Renjun.

 

“And what about me?” Jaemin asks, thumb rubbing circles on Jeno’s hand.

 

“Yeah, I think I would.” Jeno says. It’s a bit of a revelation for himself as well. He can see it, too. He can imagine it playing out.

 

They’d meet at the airport, and Jaemin would be so glad to see him that he’d run forward to hug him, leaving his luggage behind. He’d get scared then, that his luggage was gone forever, and Jeno would laugh. He’d tell Jaemin it was right behind him, and Jaemin would turn around and see it, laughing at himself. Jeno would be laughing too, so hard he couldn’t breathe.

 

 


End file.
